For generations, war and chaos raged across the land of Tyria. Five great races competed and warred against each other, struggling to tip the balance of power in their favor.

Then the dragons woke.

The all-powerful beasts stirred from their millennial sleep under earth and sea. With their magical breath the dragons spread destruction and created legions of twisted slaves. A deathless dragon named Zhaitan raised the sunken nation of Orr, triggering earthquakes and tidal waves that destroyed entire cities across the Sea of Sorrows.

Zhaitan's undead armies surged from the sea, hungry for the destruction of the five races of Tyria: the charr, a ferocious race of feline warriors; the asura, magical inventors of small size and great intellect; the norn, towering shapeshifters from the frigid northern lands; the sylvari, a mysterious young race of visionary plant folk; and the humans, an embattled but resilient people.

Now heroes from the five races must set aside ancient rivalries and stand together against their common enemies.

Magic, technology, and cold steel will determine the ultimate fate of the world.

This is the premise of the new MMO that is getting all of the hype nowadays: Guild Wars 2. Its prequel, Guild Wars Prophecies, was released on April 28, 2005. The first campaign in the series, GW: Prophecies storyline was situated around the world of Tyria. The game starts off with the attack of anthrofeline warriors known as Charr on the kingdom of Ascalon City. After a while, the Charr initiate a magical attack known as the Searing, raining fire and giant crystals down on the land to transform the once idyllic area into a desolate wasteland. Through several other events, the survivors (along with Prince Rurik) make their way to Lion's Arch, the capital of the Krytan continent and a makeshift refugee camp for the Ascalonians. But not all is well, as rumors of greater evils emerge throughout the journey, and the survivors must travel all over the continent to annihilate this evil.

Between 2005 and 2007, three more campaigns were released. Guild Wars: Factions, the second installment, takes place in the small southern continent of Cantha, where a corrupted bodyguard named Shiro Tagachi is resurrected to bring more evil to the land. The next installment, Guild Wars: Nightfall, takes place in the arid continent of Elona, where the Old God Abaddon threatens the existence of all life with Nightfall.

An expansion pack was released on August 31, 2007, known as Eye of the North. This expansion was released to bridge the gap between the three original Guild Wars campaigns and the long-awaited sequel, Guild Wars 2. The player finds a large tremor that was recently opened, and after exploring the crevasse, they come across a group of dwarves and an equally small gnome-like being known as an Asura. As the player tries to find out why the dwarves were creating these tremors, an artifact known as an Asuran Gate (a kind of portal) activates, releasing these lava-like beings known as Destroyers. After narrowly escaping through another Gate, the player travels throughout the mountain range known as the Far Shiverpeaks to enlist the help of the Asura, Dwarves, a human guardian group known as the Ebon Vanguard, and the giant humanoid shapeshifters known as the Norn. Together, they must fight to destroy the Great Destroyer. But upon doing so, they release the sleeping dragons from their slumber.

Guild Wars 2 takes place 250 years after Eye of the North, where the aftereffects of the dragon awakenings have taken its toll. The once dominant humans of Tyria are in decline, supplanted from most of their land by natural disasters and war with the Charr, who have finally reclaimed the last vestiges of their ancestral homeland of Ascalon from the humans. To the north, the Norn have been forced south by the rise of Jormag, and in the west, the technologically advanced Asura have been forced to establish permanent homes above-ground after the minions of the first dragon to awaken, Primordus, took control of the Depths of Tyria. Near the forests where the Asura make their home are the Sylvari, a new race who have appeared in Tyria in the last 25 years, unaffected by the difficulties that plague the other races but with some as-of-yet unexplained connection to the Elder Dragons.

In this beta, the player is only able to choose to make a character from three of the five possible races: Human, Norn, and Charr, leaving behind the Asura and Sylvari for later events. However, all eight professions are usable: Elementalist, the master of the four elements; Warrior, the jack-of-all-trades weapon tank; Guardian, a protector of the weak; Engineer, a technical expert with rifles, turrets, and grenades; Ranger, a survivalist that attacks with powerful pet allies; Necromancer, the corrupt master of the undead; Thief, the silent assassin of the shadows; and Mesmer, a spellcaster adept in warping and destroying the minds of his/her enemies.

The vast majority of gamers agree that Guild Wars 2 will be WoW's biggest rival. Many WoW players have actually canceled their subscription to go to this game, which is F2P forever. Guild Wars 2 has won many awards, including Most Anticipated Games of 2012 (IGN), Best MMO Game of 2012 (G4), and Top 10 Best Games of 2012 (PC Gamer). And, as you know, IGN, G4, and PC Gamer are rather harsh critics of video games. And to be given these awards is, for lack of a better word, epic. WoW clearly has some competition with Guild Wars 2.

Now onto the actual review. I will discuss my opinions on graphics, sound, addictiveness, depth, story, and difficulty. Note that at this stage, Guild Wars 2 is only in beta testing, so my entire review is subject to change once the actual game comes out.

Graphics:

The graphics are, if anything, improved from the original Guild Wars. Gameplay elements of graphics are retained in this upcoming sequel, allowing players of the original to feel right at home. The scenes look as bright and beautiful as ever, from the deep forests at the foot of the Shiverpeaks, to the Grand Canyon-esque desert of Ascalon. The designers put a great deal of detail into their creations, where the player can differentiate between blades of grass.

Even the cutscenes seem out of this world. If you start as a Charr, you must fight a large statue haunted by one of the ghosts of Ascalon City. The screen shakes as it roars, blue lightning aura coming out of its mouth and in between each rock. As a human, you fight off a large earth elemental, covering the screen with clear pieces of dust that swirl around it. And for the Norn, a large Ice Wurm shoots out of the ground, freezing the screen with frost crystals as it roars. These scenes were very well made.

Sound:

Yet another spectacular piece of work by none other than the great Jeremy Soule. If that name sounds familiar, it should. He composed the soundtracks for video games like Harry Potter, The Elder Scrolls, and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. His music is absolutely spectacular, and his finest work is showcased in Guild Wars 2. No background music has ever matched so perfectly to every situation, from a quiet stroll through a tranquil forest, to a full-blown war between two sides.

The voiceovers for the characters are also well-done. No more cheesy lines. No more bad voice acting. The voices clearly match the race; Humans sound courageous, Charr sound menacing, and Norn sound powerful. What more could be said about the voice acting except 'Wow'?

Addictiveness:

This is probably going to be the lowest score that I will give. Guild Wars 2 is a fun game to play, yes, but something seemed a little off as playtime dragged on. Perhaps it was because there was only one weekend to play before having to wait for the next beta. Perhaps it was the limitations on what races you could choose. But I'm not giving this review to list possible reasons for my opinions.

During character creation, you could choose a variety of background stories for each race. For example, if you play as a human, you could choose to be from the slums, the commoners, or royalty. Your associates vary depending on what background you chose (a slummer like you, a tavern keeper, or a prince, respectively). However, no matter what you choose, the storyline is about the same with relatively few changes. So if you decide to make another human character, be prepared to go through the same tasks.

This isn't to say that this alone would make the game boring. On the contrary, this game is still relatively addictive. Unlike the original Guild Wars series, where your party would be given a private world to explore and battle creatures, this game takes on a WoW aspect. No matter where you are, there will be other players playing with you. You're never alone, and you will always get help when you need it.

The healing aspect has also been revamped. Instead of dedicating a single class to healing (Monks, Priests, etc), each class has their own recovery skill. For example, a Necromancer can summon a Blood Fiend that absorbs health for the character with each attack, while an Elementalist will gain health and a buff (known as a Boon) depending on what elemental affinity they're using at the time (yes, Elementalists can change their affinity at any time). And instead of simply dying when you lose all your health, you go into a Second Chance-like situation, where you're on the ground and you have four skills at your disposal. These skills are used to help kill your enemy. If you manage to kill the enemy in time, you will get 'Rallied" and recover to about 1/3 total health and continue fighting. However, if the enemy continues to hit you, the bar that represents your 'health' will go down. Once that bar reaches zero, you're dead. You can either respawn at any waypoint you unlocked, or wait for another player to revive you. And yes, any class has the ability to revive you. It definitely adds to strategy and takes away the mindless button-mashing and dying every couple of seconds.

Depth:

This score won't do the full game justice, since players only had one weekend to play. Nonetheless, I'll give my best review for how far I did get (which wasn't terribly far).

Regardless of what race and class you choose, you start with a simple tutorial. Controls are the same for any other MMORPG; numbers are your skills, WASD to move, and so on. On the Human side, you travel to the small village of Shaemoor, which you discover is under attack by a herd of centaurs. You fight off the herd and take out the boss, which explodes and causes you to be knocked unconscious. You wake up a few days later in the care of a priestess, who tells you that you are regarded as a hero of the village, and should help others in need.

As a Charr, the three legions (Ash, Blood, and Iron) team up together to hold the barricade of Ascalon from the ghost warriors. You descend into the crypts, where you go to defeat the ghost of Duke Barridin. You return to the outskirts of your home, the Black Citadel, where you are told to help others who need it, and later find out that most of your warband has been killed in the skirmish.

For the Norn, you start out at a large hunting gathering, where hunters are trying to prove their worth to participate in the Hunt for the Ice Wurm boss. You go get a trophy, which is either from a large boar, the minotaur leader, or a large griffon. You turn in the trophy and, with the help of other hunters, lure out and kill the boss. As a successful hunter, you go around and pay your respects to the four shrines representing the Bear, Wolf, Snow Leopard, and Raven spirits. As you return, you find out that something isn't quite right with the other spirits.

I can't give this game an accurate review, since roughly seven hours of gameplay has only yielded me about 2% of total completion. For those of you who aren't great in your math, this is about 350 hours of gameplay. Of course I was also doing as many side-quests and exploring as I could before continuing with later story quests, so a 'speed run' could take at least 100 hours. For a game that has been over five years in the making, this is more than what I, or many of us, had expected.

The creators did an excellent job with the skill system. Each weapon has its own set of skills. Two handed weapons have five possible skills, one handed weapons have three skills, and off hand weapons have two. These skills are unlocked after defeating a certain number of enemies, rather than simply buying them from a skill trainer or learning them from skill books. At level five, you start acquiring utility skills. Each race and class has their own unique set of utility skills. For example, Rangers have skills that benefit their pets, while Elementalists can inflict status effects with their skills. You can have up to three utility skills at a time, unlocked at levels 5, 10, and 20. At level 30, you can start learning Elite Skills. As their name suggests, these skills are the most powerful skills that your class and race can learn. However, no one has been able to get to this level to use these skills, so I can't say how excellent these are. You can only have one of these set at a time. This gives you a total of nine skills per set. This doesn't seem like much if you're used to playing WoW, but remember that this isn't a button-mashing game. Each skill is useful in different situations. Strategy is a necessity in this game, and that just makes it all the better.

The quest system has also been given a much-needed update. I want you to think of your favorite MMORPG that has a great quest system. What are the quests like? The traditional RPG has quests like "Kill X Ogres", or "Gather X items and bring them to this NPC". I bet none of you actually read the quest description to see the background for why you're even doing the quest in the first place. Guild Wars 2 isn't like that. Each quest is unique and well-detailed. One such quest will be mentioned in the Story part of this review so you can see just how in-depth some quests are. Some quests aren't even given to you by NPCs; some simply appear at random times. For example, as you are helping a farmer get rid of stray wurms in the field, a group of bandits may attack the farm, and it's up to you and your fellow players to stop them from destroying the farm. Interesting how events pop up when you least expect it, no?

Story:

The story is mentioned in the italicized paragraphs at the beginning of this post. As you can see, this looks like standard fantasy RP; bad guys wake up, bad guys terrorize land, good guys must get together to take on bad guys. This is the simplest and shortest abstract for this game.

But this game is far from simple. Unlike many RPGs, the choices you make in this game WILL impact the rest of your gameplay. For example, you might go after captives held by a hostile race known as the Dredge. You would have to fight your way into the base, take out the commander, rescue the prisoners, then hold the fort from incoming dredge attacks. But suppose you don't capture the base. The dredge will establish a new base in player-friendly territory and unleash new attacks on the nearby villages, exchanging supplies between bases, and sending out snipers on hilltops to prevent players from taking back the base. If the snipers aren't stopped, they take out merchants and villagers. And if the dredge take control of the village, the players group up to liberate the town. And all this stemmed from one single event; the dredge patrolling around their base and taking initial prisoners.

The stories for the three playable races thus far are interesting. Some characters are rather memorable, such as a performing magician that accidentally explodes himself, or a corrupt Charr legionnaire that hates your guts. Many of the main characters will leave some sort of impact on you, which is hard to say for characters in other MMOs.

Difficulty:

The difficulty range is simply outstanding. The difficulty varies between stupidly easy to rage-quitting difficult. Some quests are too easy, such as killing spiders while gathering apples, to downright ridiculous, like leading an assault team on an entire Charr legion. The quests get even harder than this, when it is necessary to have hundreds of players to even stand a chance at defeating one of the dragons. However, this quest hasn't made it to this beta event, so I can only assume how difficult it is.


I give Guild Wars 2 the following scores, based on my experiences in the beta. Remember that these scores are subject to change for the final release:

Graphics: 9.8
Sound: 10
Addictiveness: 7.3
Depth: 9.6
Story: 9.1
Difficulty: 8.0

Overall: 9.0

Beta Weekend Events are open to any person who pre-orders Guild Wars 2, regardless of the edition that you pre-purchase. Future events may include the use of Asura and Sylvari races, World versus World skirmishes against the dragons, and underwater exploration (yes, you can fight underwater too).

This is ArchCalder, signing off.